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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Armada: Imperial Control

Slow down, you're going too fast!

I've been taking a look at how I might run the Interdictor in the last couple of days and I think I might have something that I want to try. For me, the Interdictor is purely a support piece, and his main goal in a list is to disrupt the overall flow of the game for the opponent. Because of this, he will need carry pieces in the fleet composition to take advantage of this disruption. At the end of the day, it's important to understand that you still need a list that is capable of outputting damage on top of the disruption. For me, this means that I will want to take the ISD-II as my mainstay damage-dealer while keeping the overall disruption theme intact.

OK, what you see here actually have a lot of moving components that work off of each other to be effective. Let me try to explain this the best I can by breaking apart individual pieces and then putting them back together so hopefully the big picture melds at the end. First, I'll talk about why I chose to go with Motti instead of the Konstantine. The answer for me right now is that I think enough control for now (meta-dependent) for the individual upgrades I have in the list. I already have Interdictor to help me refresh various components and I have multiple Tractor Beams. Titus is present for the early slow, Suppressor and Slicer Tools to disrupt further once we close. In short, this list is already loaded with a lot of control elements so I don't think I need the extra control over amount of longevity that Motti supplies to the rest of the fleet. There is a reason why Motti is chosen so much by Imperial Admirals everywhere, and that's because he makes the ISD-II 27% healthier in terms of how much damage he can take. As long as the ISD can keep throwing lead downtown, he is still the #1 target on the battlefield. Not to mention he makes the Interdictor a little healthier as well, and we all know that without ECMs he's going to need all the help that he can get.

Scrambling your shots.

Let's take a closer look at this 117-point cost Interdictor and I'll tell you why I chose to go with this version. Interdictor is a must-have title if you plan on taking this type of ship because it allows you to essentially refresh a control card as soon as a ship activates. A ship, any ship, which is key here because of the timing window. This allows you to recycle Targeting Scrambler twice or punk someone with G-8s multiple times in a round. It's just a very strong card. The second thing you'll notice here is Captain Needa. Since the Interdictor needs as much protection as you can, I don't think there's a better choice in this slot in trying to reduce the overall damage coming in. Replacing one of those double Contains with an Evade is extremely good at keeping the Interdictor alive and having it disrupt the rest of the board. Tractor Beams will be a reoccurring theme here on the big ships because being able to slow your opponents without having to take Konstantine as the commander is key. You're paying points for the slow, although at different windows, but those points are better spent in prolonging your ships longevity. Lastly, I decided on MS-1 Ion Cannons because a blue crit means you get to exhaust the defender's upgrade card. If the Interdictor hits first, or hits another target that the ISD-II haven't shot at, this means that when it's time to blast way with the big dog, there's a possibility that enemy ECM will be exhausted. Perfect, because without ECMs to mitigate accuracies, there's always going to be a possible window for massive and unexpected damage.

Stop right there.

The reasons why I chose to go with Targeting Scrambler and G-8 Experimental Projectors are dead simple: I think Targeting Scrambler is one of the best upgrades for this ship and I would even take it over everything else if I have other big damage-dealers in the fleet. The ability to essentially turn all those double-hit reds into blanks is godsend, and the ability to do it multiple times thanks to the Interdictor title is amazing. For me, it's kinda like a reverse Leading Shots; but even more painful for the opponent. For example, if I roll big with my MC80 Assault and drop massive damage on you thanks to Leading Shots, you retaliate by forcing a re-roll on all those double-hits I just scored and I basically lost a dice from Leading Shots (since I have to burn a blue). The only downside for this is that it affects targets shooting at the defender at close-range. Great, because this means that it's robbing the Demolisher of most of its strength possibly and reducing the overall impact in certain key firefights. Very good. So good, that it's sometimes difficult to choose between the G-8 if you can only choose one. The G-8 is good because you can take someone from speed 1 to 0 on the maneuver so you can stifle them from moving entirely. This is actually one of the only reasons why I'd give Konstantine that extra side-ways look, and that's because further suppression can result in a ship standing still. Regardless, being able to pin and slow ships on their activation, while being able to be refreshed via Interdictor is great. This opens up a ton of strategy in which you can force traffic jams on guppies, stopping fast-flankers from getting the drop on you, and reducing the overall threat of DeMSU.

I'm not going to speak a lot about the Imperial-II because it's pretty much what you expected from me. Big, lots of upgrades, getting the most damage out when you can, and being able to bully ships into submission with IO/XI7s and Tractor Beams. Another thing to note is that having the Suppressor title present allows me to combo in Avenger to essentially disable a key defense token. Having the 2-point Titus riding shotgun on the Gozanti is a great cheap way to slow down that Demolisher at the start of the game, and Slicer Tools are there to disrupt any fishes trying to swim away by replacing them with useless commands.

Well, there you have it folks. The list is pretty mean in theory and as long as you take it nice and slow with the Interdictor while applying equal pressure with the Avenger, I think things will work out just fine.